The Next Big Thing

I was tagged for this post by Priya Sharma for which I'm grateful. It's a cool thing. Stop now and go immediately to Priya's site and read her interview about a story that she's very promptly sold! While waiting for her story to appear, you can read some of her other fine stories at Albedo One, Black Static (issue 28) and Interzone (current issue).

Next week, plus or minus a few time zones, Richard Jones (blogging here) speculative fiction writer and author of A Dude's Guide to Babies (pre-order now!) will be posting his answers to these questions.

1) What is the working title of your next book/short story/project?

My next published book will be Shaky Ground, due out in a few weeks. My next (still-in-my-head) book will be an alternate-historical mystery with the working title of Tainted Earth. The two don't have anything in common despite the titles and the German setting.

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

This is a complicated and not completely linear thing, this genesis of ideas. I suspect it's probably that way with most writers. Anyway, I'll try.

Shaky Ground is the sequel to Primary Fault, the first book in my Schattenreich series. I got the idea for the first book when we first started working on the archeoseismology of the Roman ruins being excavated in the Archeological Zone in Cologne (the paper that came out of that project is open access, published by Springer Verlag and downloadable here). The events in the novel are all fictional, but the real world controversy surrounding the (still unsupported) hypothesis that an earthquake could have forced Charlemagne, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, to abandon his seat of government in Cologne for Aachen greatly inspired me. Even though the Schattenreich series is contemporary, I also have plans to do a few historical shorts linking the past and the present.

But what really caught my fancy was a certain Roman well – a part of the excavations in the middle of Cologne – just across from the Rathaus or City Hall, in fact. This Roman well, still in use in Charlemagne's time, kept bugging me, wouldn't let me go. Plus I had started reading heavily about Druids and continental Celts and knew that had to be a part of the story. Druids+Roman ruins+Earthquakes. It was enough to get started. Even though the Roman well doesn't come into play until Shaky Ground, it was always there, in the back of my mind while writing the first book.

So, complicated.

3) What genre does your book fall under?

Fantasy suspense with a healthy dose of romance.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Ha! I love this question because actually answering it will totally ruin everyone's – including my own – private images of the characters in the book. After giving it much thought, there's only two characters I'd pin down with an actor/actress: Anne Hathaway would, I think, be the perfect Caitlin Schwarzbach. Marco Girnth, a German actor who is mainly known for his work in the television police procedural SOKO Leipzig (the show is not particularly riveting, but I do enjoy watching Marco Girnth :-)) would be the perfect Heinrich von der Lahn and matches the mental picture I have of him.

I'm still trying to figure out who could play Sebastian von der Lahn. He's the most complicated character in the series, and I have to admit, I'm completely stumped. There are probably a half dozen excellent German actors who could do the role justice. Specifying an actor to play Hagen von der Lahn remains beyond my abilities at the moment. Gus Schwarzbach is such an amalgam of people I've known in my life, that it would also be impossible for me to pin him down. From looks alone, though, Garth Brooks comes pretty darn close.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

A tale of seismology, Druids, and an evil blonde.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Self-published under my imprint, Terrae Motus Books.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Four months. But it's taken me over three years to get it into publishable shape. It was a complete mess. It was the second novel (after Primary Fault) that I wrote. Even though I'm an incurable Pantser, Shaky Ground was the last novel I will ever write without some sort of a Road Map. I realized after it was finished that I didn't ever want to wander in the wilderness like that again.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Difficult, since it's a mix of real world science and contemporary fantasy. There's Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon, but other than the Celtic cultural references and the romance aspects, the two books couldn't be more different. I would love to have it compared to Roger Zelazny's Amber series, but the comparison falls short once you get past the Otherworld/mythological aspects and the freaky Gothic castle.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

That's easy. Impending unemployment (that thankfully did not transpire!) Plus encouragement from another scientist who had written a novel (and gotten it published). I thought, if he could do it…so I sat down one day and started with Chapter 1. No plan. No real clue at all. Three months later I had Primary Fault. That was a little over five years ago. And after I finished, I immediately started writing the sequel, Shaky Ground. Everyone warned me away from doing that, from continuing to write books in a series before I had sold the first one. They were completely right. But I'm incredibly stubborn. And not so smart. However, I am immensely glad I did it. It's been a liberating experience, writing the books I always wanted to read. I'm now writing the fifth and final book in the series (if I change my mind on this, please just push me off a cliff). 

Notes from the field: Tiryns, 2012

At the beginning of our last day in the field, the sun was already well above the ruins of the Mycenaen castle in Tiryns. We had to wait for the GPS to wake up - he'd been increasingly sluggish the last week. Then we made some random gravity measurements and a few quick profiles before the van had to be packed for the drive back to Germany (on the Superfast ferry from Patras to Ancona, Italy and then overland). Most of us flew back to Cologne from Athens.

Looking back, three days later and home in rainy Cologne, it's amazing all the data we collected: passive seismic, P-wave tomography, S-wave tomography, active seismic (in place until next spring), gravity, and differential GPS locations for almost everything. Hector, our doctoral student also did some structural geology measurements.

It's been a field campaign of varying length. A couple of us had been there for four weeks at that time, others three weeks. I think I could have handled another week, but then would have come to the end of my endurance. Once you're over fifty, you really feel it in your bones when you're measuring in 35^oC for eight hours a day. I wouldn't have been able to stand it if it weren't for my lovely and capable measuring partner, Jana (featured below).

 A girl and her differential GPS. It's not easy looking good in the field, but Jana managed it every day.

Next year we'll go back to uncover Medea's geophysical secrets.

A pictorial journal shows the highlights of our Odyssey along our appropriately-named project HERACLES.

The van with its Uni Cologne logo - driven from Cologne to Tiryns and back again.

A panoramic view of Tiryns castle from the east

West view of the castle from the aptly named Mosquito Alley. A mini seismometer array lurks in the foreground

 

Science in Action! Here's the newly designed shear wave source being applied to a refraction line on Mosquito Alley.

Our hotel pool at Anthemion House and a view to Napflion and the hills beyond. Unfortunately, we could not enjoy the pool as much as we would have liked due to just being too darn tired at the end of the day.

Dida, the dig Hund helping Gregor analyze the day's data.

A Day at Burg Satzvey with Jeannette Gräfin Beissel von Gymnitch, Part II. The Interview

Tracie Mayer and I wanted to find out more about the fascinating woman who reduced the attendees of the AIWCC Annual General Meeting to tears with her stories about the foundation she started to help troubled and abused children. After the countess showed us her home (see Part I), we had a chance to ask her some questions.

TM: Was there a certain event that triggered your founding the Jeannette Gräfin Beissel von Gymnich Stiftung in 2008? 

JGBvG: Yes. A couple years after I moved into the castle, I noticed a group of kids sitting around the campfire after all the tourists had left the jousting festival. They didn’t look like they had taken part in the festival because the people who stayed overnight stayed in medieval costume all the time. So I sat down and joined them.

I found out that these are children from one of the homes in Cologne. The adults called my husband to see if they could stay overnight and sleep in their tents. My husband replied that they could stay for the weekend for free as long as they’d be willing to help clean up the grounds. 

The next year they came again and slowly came to have more responsibility [helping out]. So my husband and I became interested in these children and we began raising money for them for Christmas presents and going to visit them. We built a relationship with these kids, ranging in age from 3-12.

We convinced a music company to invest in a children’s home. I kept writing them but we never heard back. Well, at Christmas we went back to visit the children, and my husband said, “It looks like you got a new Volkswagen van, where did you get that?” It turned out the music company had sent them 78,000 DM. With 48,000 of that money they bought the van.

We asked the directors of the home, where the rest of the money went. They weren’t very open about it, so we said we would bring the newspapers out here if they didn’t tell us. They told us they would never let us again set foot on the premises. Next Christmas we had to pass Christmas gifts through the fence. 

Soon after this two of the pedagogues decided to open their own organization in Brühl, und I immediately joined forces to help and managed to raise much money over the following years.  During one golf tournament I raised €77,000 in one evening. And a bank topped it to  €100,000 by Christmas. We opened two new homes and that’s when Mr. Schumacher, the head of the Schumaneck Organization proposed, “You can’t keep helping us to open a new home every year, it is so hard to find adequate personnel.. Why don’t you start your own foundation?” And that’s when I did it.

TM: Can you describe a typical day in the running of the charity?

JGBvG: I really don’t have a typical day. I try to figure out what and where money is needed and make plans. For example, I raised €33,000 for the complete group of 54 kids to have a summer vacation camping trip this year. I raise money for dolphin therapy, for furniture, for school excursions, for toys and clothes, for glasses and hearing aids. We brainstorm and then we just do. And of course I spend time with the kids. I feel very close to the children in Brühl, but I also know that there are so many children in Germany who are in dire need of basics, such as food, a clean home and some t.l.c.

TM: What has been your biggest triumph?

JGBvG: The biggest triumph would definitely be that golf tournament. But also writing books and motivating people to help me. Basically just doing things I never dreamed possible. 

TM: What's your favorite thing about castle life? Your least favorite thing?

JGBvG: My favorite thing is a summer evening when I can sit on the terrace and enjoy the roses when there aren’t too many people here because there are always so many people here. And the trees. I love to look at the trees...my favorite room in the castle is my office because I can sit there with a wonderful view overlooking the tops of the trees. My least favorite thing is the stairs, the heating, the leaking roof...

TM: Do you have a hard time reconciling your American identity with that of your Austrian one? 

JGBvG: No. I’m definitely American.

TM: Who is your greatest source of inspiration?

JGBvG: You know, I sometimes think of Gandhi as he walked around India in a loincloth. The people who are great are the ones who are quiet, not the arrogant ones wanting to brag about their money.

Our interview had come to an end with this inspirational woman, but we each had one last question which turned out to be the same question: 

TM: Where do you get all your energy from?

JGBvG: Sometimes I feel like I’m running on low batteries. I know that I definitely push myself too much. But I get energized when people find out about my books; and I have found that my energy level is affected by the kind of feedback I get out of my day. I try to go to the gym four mornings a week. The day comes to a close around dinnertime and then I turn off the phone.

As Tracie sums it up so succinctly: at which point the countess is no doubt thinking and making plans for tomorrow.

A Day at Burg Satzvey with Jeannette Gräfin Beissel von Gymnitch, Part I. Getting There

Put two women in a Mini and aim them away from Cologne. What happens? They get hopelessly lost, but because they are so righteous, they of course deny it. Just outside of Aachen, Tracie Mayer and I really had to admit it. Then we finally figured out how to program the %&$!?*# GPS and got ourselves headed in the right direction.

I was already plenty nervous as it was. I had been to Burg Satzvey many years before when we took my son to one of their jousting plays. I had been totally entranced with the authentically costumed purveyors of all that was medieval. There had also been a man flying hawks and falcons. It had been a magical day, and the grounds, including the courtyard, stuck in my memory so tenaciously, they served as a rough model when I designed the exterior of Burg Lahn, the imaginary part Gothic-part medieval castle near the Rhine, in my Schattenreich series (Book 1: Primary Fault).  

This courtyard inspired my fictional one.

 I'd never been inside the castle, so I was eager to see if anything – anything – I had thought up for the castle interior would turn out to be correct. I was nervous about meeting a real, honest-to-goodness German Countess and hoping I wouldn't do anything immensely stupid. Now nearly an hour late, we pull into the long driveway of the castle (www.burgsatzvey.de) and debate where to park. Ever the intrepid reporter, Tracie pulls right up to the chain guarding the wide open courtyard flanking the castle. The castle and grounds are even more breathtaking than I'd remembered them. The formerly moated castle, still retains a large pond, populated by what appear to be very contented ducks. 

We approach the front door and ring the bell just as an attractive broad-shouldered man on a bicycle rides up. 

“Uh oh,” I said to Tracie.

The man asks us who we’re looking for.

“Jeannette,” Tracie calls out.

“Die Gräfin,” I quickly chime in.

He holds out his hand. “I’m her husband. She’s waiting for you.”

Instantly charmed, we follow the Count of Burg Satzvey, Franz Josef Graf Beissel von Gymnich, through the rounded wooden door and into the castle foyer.

Jeannette, Die Gräfin, is exactly, precisely, the appropriate description of the slender, dark-haired Countess of Burg Satzvey. Tracie describes her so: pretty, poised and intelligent; she walks and talks with purpose. 

I couldn’t agree more as she shows us her home and tells us with much enthusiasm about the long history (officially est. 1368) of the castle, spiced with both honorable and scandalous incidents. I was pleasantly surprised to find some things (especially the dining room!) matched what my imagination had conjured quite well - except for the details about the hand-carved chairs. I may have to steal that. 

"No castle is complete without peculiar furniture," said Hagen von der Lahn, a fictional baron.

 After collecting Jeannette’s spry and witty 93-year-old mother (who could easily pass for 70), we adjourn to the cozy Italian bistro Da Marcello in the second courtyard that also houses a banquet hall (a former cow stall!) roomy enough to seat 400 people. 

Jeannette Gräfin Beissel von Gymnich is the daughter of a U.S. diplomat and a refined woman of Irish and Viennese descent. Born in Bonn, Germany, she grew up in South America and Europe. Arriving in Hamburg at 19, she worked in advertising and remained there for 12 years. She met and then married Franz Josef  Graf  Beissel von Gymnich, who in 1981 began the jousting and other historical events held at the castle which is also his birthplace, Burg Satzvey. (He was born in an upstairs bedroom.) 

The Countess spoke to our club about her foundation at this year’s AGM, where she had club members in tears about the fates of the children her foundation supports. We wanted to hear more about her foundation, the Jeannette Gräfin Beissel von Gymnich Stiftung. See Part II, The Interview.

There are many activities for all ages at Burg Satzvey throughout the year including castle tours (minimum of five persons), Ritterspiele (medieval tournaments),  Halloween fest, Maifest (with Hexenmarkt) , Christmas and Easter markets. Information and booking at www.burgsatzvey.de

Not only does Jeannette successfully manage an entire castle in addition to having raised a family (son and daughter), she's also an accomplished author of both fiction and non-fiction works. Here's the bibliography:

1.   Luxury Houses Schlösser-Castles-Châteaux Germany: Castles in Germany (Luxury Books), ISBN 978-3832791735, teNeues Verlag, January 2007 – coffee table quality

2.   Und Flog in anderes Land, ISBN 978-3897053397, Emons Verlag, August 2004 – a medieval novel with a highly accurate historical basis

3. Aldikadabra, ISBN-10 3926224177, Zeitgeist Verlag (1999) – a collection of magical recipes from the supermarket!

4. Frauen und ihre Schlösser – mehr als Glanz und Gloria, ISBN 978-3868732528, Knesebeck Verlag, March 2011 – highly readable and a rare view of 19 chatelaines and the German castles they manage. 

Her newest book (no title as of yet!) will profile 30 businesswomen and entrepreneurs in North Rhine Westphalia, Germany and is due out in December 2012.